Never Bloom Again | Big Time Rush Drabbles

[i.] alone was never easy after you;

The passing breeze in Los Angeles is arid and reticent, the hummingbirds once daintily flitting as they whispered arias in his lungs now dead silent in suspended animation, as he hunches beneath the inky darkness of the amaranthine horizon and feels it dripping down his aching spine.

The night is bright, yet the moon is nowhere to be seen.

Instead, he watches the feeble starlight attempt to fight back the dazzling billboard lights, and black-eyed skyscrapers, and rows upon rows of impatient headlamps infecting it with that sickly artificial glow; a city of smoke and mirrors enchanting the eventide skies with obfuscation pure—though he's certainly a lot less adept than his cosmic companions in fighting back the noxious smogginess threatening to cloud his lethargic judgment.

Twinkle, twinkle, little stars...

Gaunt shadows under viridian eyes—the tally mark of one thousand sleepless hours disturbed only by the white lies clattering against his crooked teeth, threatening to break out and make him scream. He simply can't get enough of not forgetting, can't get enough of that silver-gilded pain retreading the same worn-out crevices in his slippery thoughts, remembering the same painted vignettes of crystalline amber gazes, illicit midnight picnics, a tangle of wispy blonde tresses glimmering under ardent sunshine, as synergistic laughter intertwined and turbulent souls collided into arguments and aspirations alike; glib-tongued conversations and traipsing japes finding their merry way home.

But home was dilapidated hockey rinks and long winter snaps and crazy snowball fights in the upper Midwest. Home is not disillusioned constellations and bellowing music producers and sprinting after a glitter and gold ambition that was never even his to keep in the first place. Home was her embrace and the sound of her voice and the faithful dreams she packed in her bags and went to follow after—sometimes, it seems, she was the only home left to stay in, and now that transient comfort has now inevitably eluded his grasp, too.

He wanly continues to observe the feeble stars struggling from above him. He wonders if the skies suffer less from underneath where she now lays.

Are you awake right now? Are you awake to remember? Or are you already fast asleep, because you don't wish to do so?

I wish I could do the same.

Wishes, youthful wishes, childish wishes on naked dandelions; like the ponderous world he has arrogantly shaken off his steadfast shoulders, like the quivering heart he time and time again smeared on his sleeve whenever the air tastes of melted plastic, and it's all he can do not to wipe off the mingling tears with the same tremulous hand—because it means something, it has to mean something—because the bitter in his empty lips—empty from miles and miles of unabridged distance and oceanic infinities—it feels like...atonement, somehow.

It feels like love in the wrong places, love and let love and take a generous breath of that ascetic isolation and allow it to sting deeper still. Sooner or later, the scarlet spill on his wrists shall eternally brand him a prideful sinner just as soon as strung veins will unravel and dredge with saltwater; stinging scars and gravity so bent on breaking and another sweeping tidal wave to sweep them further apart, miles and miles and miles and miles...

If only he has enough brackish tears left to fill that gap.

Like the gap between the barren poolside he's currently freezing to death in and the airport filled with background chatter and an awaiting warm goodbye kiss. One last almost-forgotten memento to remember woebegone devotion by...is that really all there is left of us?

To him, it felt more like pressing a seal against hot wax, the letter inside was filled with looping i's and you's and optimistic diacritics and promises set in bleeding italics, copperplate signatures like fault lines against ancient parchment, resolutely cracking underneath lilting lies and teetering feet as they futilely chase for one last frisson farewell; all before bitter abeyance burns down the unread postscript in the fireplace and throws the ashes back in his face.

If he cries again, he will only stain himself with soot grey to coalesce with scarlet pain. If he doesn't, it would harden into a charcoal lump and lodge in his thorny throat.

Still, he refuses the persistent gale knocking on his chest as he replays the moment where everything was all wrong except for the closing distance between their awaiting lips...and then suddenly the mercurial gravity righted itself on its own and he was holding her so tightly with feet planted firmly on cloud nine, she was so warm and breathless and beautiful, god, she was so beautiful, and he only ever wants to see her smile again as she calls him a jerkface and playfully presses that pink smoothie against his dimpled cheek, cold against warm, now warm against cold, he was used to the cold before she slowly took that bad habit away from him, and now he has to reforge it again—in a sweltering city that's only ever set to scorch blistered boulevards and broken boys, no less—

Over, over, all over again...

He precariously tilts against the lip of the pool, desperate fingers digging into wet tile for a grip that isn't there to hold onto; and for a moment, he thinks if he should simply let go and swallow the frigid chlorinated water instead, cold now colder without her. But the hummingbirds must have fallen off their perch and fainted, expired even, from the lack of oxygen, for he could feel their sharp beaks digging holes under his ribs.

So he props himself back up and almost slips again, licks his cracked lips and opens his parched mouth, and he gingerly inhales, one tiny begrudging sip at a time.

Los Angeles still reeks of false hope and cigarette smoke, making him feel headier than ever. But somewhere in between the taste of carbon monoxide and recycled humidity and burnt-out aspirations of a million wandering dreamers, some lingering sweetness remains. A memento mori, his to keep forever.

And somewhere in those darkened windows above his own daydreaming head, were five more people left to love in the wrong and right places; their home everlasting amidst illustrious uncertainty, and if he only so chooses to love and let love, sooner than later, the scarlet spill reminding him of what he has left to give might just fade away.

It wouldn't be sincere love if it doesn't hurt worldwide. Likewise, it shouldn't be the kind of love that keeps his clock from spinning.

After all, she would not wish him to revel in a carousel of anguish to remember her by, just as much as he would never wish her to fall ill from the same dizzying ride and lose any repose over him. The carousel may be in maintenance and the tunnel of love may be flooded over, but the carnival has not ceased, and he has other loving hands, warm and excited and sticky with sweat and candy floss, left to drag into another awaiting misadventure in that chromatic daze.

Whether it be a stomach-churning, gravity-defying rollercoaster ride, or a rusty shooting gallery with adorable stuffie puppies up for prizes, or if he's brave enough, he can let the fortuneteller grab his palms and read his old scars, and maybe they'll tell him where to go next.

He misses home, but that doesn't mean he has to stay home all the time. After all, sometimes he has to allow himself to fall astray and allow the entire ponderous world to sit on his humbled shoulders and tell their sublime stories, so he can appreciate what he is going to return to all the more. And he may feel like he is losing, but maybe, just maybe...all is not lost yet.

How I wonder what you are...

The feeble starlight, having won their cosmic combat for tonight, winks back at him as he feels the hummingbirds gently stir once more; though the forget-me-nots under his flushed skin they once so adored seem to have already wilted. Maybe he will try planting some gypsophilas in its place tomorrow.

And if he allows himself to be a little kinder, and they slowly yet surely effloresce in a different kind of love, maybe he can finally breathe a little easier again.